Inexplicable Love
by Leola Mae
Summary: Unlikely. Impossible. Yet, there he was. Not the man of my dreams, but – suddenly, irrationally – the one in my heart.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** Unlikely. Impossible. Yet, there he was. Not the man of my dreams, but – suddenly, irrationally – the one in my heart.

Chapter 1

**Leah**

How much was one person supposed to take?

The fever overtook me a week ago. Because I was a girl, no one considered the possibility that it was anything other than a normal virus. The boys around the res were flipping like pancakes, all with the same symptoms as me. But when I got a fever, I got sent to bed with some medication instead of into the woods where the others could help me. I stayed there for a few days, getting hotter and hotter, until I couldn't take it any longer.

"Mom," I called, staggering out of my room, down the hall and into the living room, my comfy pj's and t-shirt soaked through with sweat. "Mom!"

"She's gone to the store. Do you need something?" Dad asked.

"Dad, I . . ." I swayed a little. It was so damned hot in the house. I was shaking, trembling all over. Wasn't that what people did when they got fevers? But I thought I was supposed to feel cold, not so damned hot. "I really don't feel well. I think I need to go to the hospital."

I barely got the words out before the bone-rattling vibrations began. The urge to stretch out as far as I could pushed at my skin from the inside. Flesh prickling itchiness burst out all over my body. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sensations. When I opened them again my dad was on the floor, fallen backwards over the ottoman. His head lay against the leg of the coffee table; his eyes were closed.

_"__Dad! DAD!"_ I tried to scream but all I could hear was a deafening, yelping noise. When I tried to lift my hands to cover my ears, I realized I couldn't, not without falling down. I was standing on four legs now, instead of two.

Voices rushed into my skull.

_"__Someone's turned." _

_"__Who is it?" _

_"__That's Harry's house." _

_"__Is it Seth?" _

_"__Seth! Is that you buddy? God, they're getting younger all the time." _

_"__Stay calm, Seth. We're coming!"_

I flipped my head back and forth, looking for Sam. I knew his voice anywhere. It used to fill my dreams, but now it haunted my nightmares. Whatever was going on, I didn't want him near me. Whimpering against the pain in my chest, I heard him again.

_"__Leah? Oh my God. Leah, is that you?" _

_"__Leah flipped?" _

_"__A girl?" _

_"__No way!" _

_"__Oh shit."_

Six half-naked boys burst through my door. I was paralyzed with fear, with confusion, with worry. I tried to tell them, _"My dad! My dad!"_ but it came out as a howling, whining bark.

Jacob and Quil went over to my dad while Sam knelt down in front of me. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was lying flat on my belly. I tried to stand up, but my center of gravity was all wonky. I couldn't get up on my legs; it was easier to stay on my hands and knees.

I looked down at my hands. At my paws . . .

_Oh my fucking God! _ _"I HAVE PAWS!"_ I tried to scream. My yelp rang loud throughout the house and shook the pictures on the walls.

Sam stepped back away from everyone, shook, and then a giant black wolf, twice as tall as me, stood where Sam had been.

_"__LeeLee, it's okay."_

_"__The FUCK, Sam? It's NOT okay. I'm . . . I'm a fucking wolf!"_ I looked over at my dad who was still unconscious. I could hear someone talking on the phone to 911. _"My dad, Sam. My dad"_ I whimpered, wanting him to hold me and comfort me like he used to. Through whatever fucked up link that allowed me to hear my ex's voice in my head, I also felt him pull away.

_"__Leah, I . . ." _

_"__Fuck you, Sam! What the hell do I do?"_ I could hear sirens in the distance. They were getting closer. I needed to not be this thing anymore. I needed to be human again, to go with my dad to the hospital. _"Help me! Undo this!"_

_"__I can't. Only you can. You've got to calm down." _

_"__Calm down? Calm down? I'm a fucking wolf and my father is dying! __**Don't fucking tell me to calm the fuck down!**__" _

I didn't know what he did, but somehow he looked bigger, puffed up. His voice became growling and demanding in my head. I wanted to punch him in the nuts for using that tone with me, but I couldn't.

_"__Calm down,"_ he said, and I literally could not disobey. I sank back down to my belly with another whimper. I rested my head between my hands . . . legs . . . paws—whatever the hell they were now—and closed my eyes.

_"__Deep breaths,"_ Sam said, and then again with human vocal chords. "Deep breaths. Concentrate on bringing your heart rate down. Breathe with me." He took several deep breaths near my ear and I matched the rhythm as well as I could. "Throw me that blanket, Paul."

My mother's old afghan, which normally lay over the back of the couch, now covered my skin and felt itchy. I looked down and realized I had hands again and that I was very naked. With a screech, I grasped the blanket tight around me and ran to my room to throw on some clothes. The EMTs were loading my father onto a gurney when I rushed back out again.

"Can you tell us what happened?" one of them asked me.

_Yeah,_ I thought, _I just killed my dad._

~O~

The clock in the kitchen was chiming midnight when a knock sounded at our front door. I sat in Dad's chair fingering the fly he'd been tying when I'd interrupted him that morning. It was the last thing he'd done in this world. Because of me he'd never finish it.

My mom let in whoever it was but I couldn't look up, couldn't even raise my head, or be bothered to care. My father was dead. I'd killed him when I'd turned into a giant wolf. A giant wolf, for God's sake, and the only female in a pack of guys, and led by the man who broke my heart.

What was there to care about in this world beyond those things? Nothing would ever be right again. My life was as bad as it could possibly get.

Mom and Seth sat across the room crying because of me, because of what I'd done. No one was talking. The awkward silence was heavy and oppressive. I couldn't stand up under the weight of it.

I glanced at my mom to tell her I was sorry, that it was all my fault, but one of Dad's best friends, Charlie Swan, stood between us. My gaze rose as I leaned over to see around him. He chose that moment to turn and face me. Our eyes met, and the world that I'd thought couldn't get any worse, did exactly that.

Without any idea of what was happening, I stood and walked as calmly out of the house—and away from the situation—as I could. The porch was as far as I made it. Steel cables attached to my gut wouldn't let me walk that far away from _him_.

The screen door opened and closed behind me and I knew who it was without even looking.

"Leah?" My name on his lips was oil and grit in my wounds.

"I'm . . . uh . . . I'm sorry." He moved even closer. The heat from him warmed me and I wanted to wrap myself in it. I concentrated on breathing, on just surviving. I was afraid that if I moved, my mind would unravel completely. Surely a day such as this fucked with people's sanity.

But then his hand was on my shoulder and I could feel him. Insane as it sounded, I knew what he needed. I could feel it deep inside me, and whatever was happening wouldn't let me do anything but respond to the call of his soul. I had to answer it, to relieve it, to _be_ it: the thing he needed. But before I could even figure out how to do that, I just was, without any effort at all.

I turned, my face in his chest, his arms around me, and—as I'd known would happen—the string was pulled and the fabric of my rational mind fell away until there was only emotion. The sobs came out harder than I even knew was possible.

I wept big, ugly tears for my father, for my fucked up transformation, for whatever this thing was between me and the man who held me. I cried for this trifecta of chaos and my inability to wrap my mind around any of it. I cried because there was nothing else to do, nothing at all. I was a wolf. My dad was dead. And the man who held me was now, inexplicably, the center of my universe.

No one person could be expected to take in all of that and not go bat-shit crazy.

"Oh, Leah."

And there it was. Abruptly, I saw. His need to comfort me slotted into place, as if it was always meant to be. What he was met my need to mourn. His need to protect paralleled my need to be sheltered from this shit-storm. I felt drawn to meet his need, but as he whispered to me, "I'm so sorry," I realized he was exactly what I needed, too.

Was God giving me a beacon of hope in the midst of such an awful collision of events? Unlikely. Impossible. Yet, there he was. Not the man of my dreams, but—suddenly, irrationally—the one in my heart.

With that thought I let myself go completely, cradled against Charlie Swan's chest.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

**Charlie**

Death is a familiar part of a cop's life, even a small town cop like me. We see it hundreds, maybe thousands of times during our career. But when it's someone you've known, someone as close as Harry is..._was_...to me, it isn't just a job anymore. While I was there in the moment, I was able to distance myself enough to do my job. But now, standing in his home, looking at his wife, his children, I couldn't turn it off. Surrounded by his things—the trophy fish I'd watched him catch, the recliner he'd sat in to watch the Seahawks, his grieving widow trying to comfort his devastated children—I was no longer a cop. I was a man who'd lost his friend.

While Sue sat on their couch and held a distraught Seth, Leah rose from her chair and went out the back door, letting the screen slam loudly behind her. She was Harry's little girl, the firecracker always giving him a hard time. As she left the room, she wasn't crying. I may not have been great with expressing emotions, but even I knew that wasn't good.

I pushed the screen door open, the creaking loud in the solemn air. "Leah?"

No answer. No sound. No tears. Her back was turned to me, stiff under her thick sweater. "I'm . . . uh . . . I'm sorry." I stepped closer to her. For all her typical bluster and bravado, she looked so fragile in the damp moonlight. I raised my hand to her shoulder tenderly, so as not to break her. At my slight touch, she turned and buried her face in my chest. Not a single noise came from her beyond her broken breaths, but the movements of her shoulders told me she was sobbing as deeply, as painfully as any daughter would for her father.

"Oh, Leah." I did what I thought Harry would have done. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her the way he would have. "I'm sorry."

She let out a sob. The sound shattered me. What if I was the one lying in the morgue? What if it was Bella standing in the mist with no one to take care of her? I'd want someone to hold her, to let her cry, to look out for her. That was what Harry would want for Leah.

Her near soundless sobs nudged at that part of me that made me a cop, that made me a father: the innate need within me to protect. I wouldn't be able to walk away from her. I couldn't bring Harry back, but I could watch out for his daughter. That much I could do, I _needed_ to do.

~O~

Of the three of them, Leah was hardest to leave. Her sadness butchered me.

When I got home that evening, I knocked on Bella's bedroom door. "Bells?"

"Yeah, Dad?" she asked, opening up and leaning against the frame.

I hadn't thought about what I would say to her. "I . . . uh . . ."

"I heard about Harry. I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

I started to nod but shook my head instead. I didn't know what I was. The image of Leah mourning her dad and thinking of Bella one day having to do the same for me, with no one there to comfort her . . .

On impulse I reached for her and held her close. "I love you, Bells."

After her momentary surprise, she squeezed me in return. "I love you, too."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**Leah**

As soon as he left, I ran. Bare feet. Mud covering my ankles and the bottoms of my yoga pants. The muscle shirt I was wearing quickly dampened as I ran harder and faster than I ever had. Running had always been a way for me to clear my head. I didn't usually run through the forest, and certainly not barefooted, but the wildness of it called to me. It matched how this thing in my chest felt: too big to be contained.

Before I knew it, the trees were whipping past me like the wind, yet I could see each one in stark relief. My breathing changed. I didn't know why it took me so long to notice, and I didn't know when the turning happened, but gradually I became aware that my hands were as muddy as my feet. I had claws that dug at the earth and pushed me ever onward, so fast it was exhilarating.

_"__Shit, she's fast."_

_"__Bet she'd outrun you, Sam."_

I could hear their voices again.

_"__Maybe. Leah?"_

I waited for the piercing in my chest at the sound of him in my head. It didn't come.

_"__What?"_ I asked, annoyed.

_"__Where are you going?"_

_"__Leave me alone."_

Several doggy howls filled my mind.

_"__Sorry. No can do, chicka. Even miles away we can still hear each other."_ Quil chuckled.

Four of them burst through the forest ahead of me. I raced past them and kept running.

_"__Your company is neither wanted nor appreciated. Now fuck off."_ I pushed myself harder. Fuck. Why couldn't they let me be? I didn't want to be around wolves _or_ people right now. Well, most people. An image of Charlie formed in my mind, bringing the feel of his comforting heartbeat beneath my ear.

I heard a few of them stumble behind me.

_"__She imprinted? Sam! She fucking imprinted! On . . . on . . ."_

_"__I can see it for myself, Paul. Thank you."_

_"__God! Get the fuck out of my head, would you?" _

_"__Leah, you've been a wolf less than a day. Jesus! Slow the fuck down and let me help you." _

_"__I don't need your help. I don't need you."_ I skidded to a stop as the truth of what I'd thought struck me. I didn't need Sam any more. I didn't want him. All my ties to him were severed, gone. I breathed deeply of the relief of it.

He caught up with me, panting like a rabid bull. _"Lord, you're fast. That'll come in handy."_

I turned to look at him. _"I don't need you any more."_ Wonder filled my voice.

_"__I know."_

_"__How? How do you know?"_

He raised one wolfy brow at me, but dropped his head apologetically. _"Because that was what happened to me when I imprinted on Emily."_

_"__I don't know what that means, Sam."_

The pictures in his mind filled my head: the first time he saw Emily after he'd turned, the shifting of his world's axis, and the cables that tied him to her. It should have hurt me. It would have devastated me mere hours ago.

Sam switched and thought about Charlie. The emotion, obviously, didn't accompany the images, but I felt them trigger something in me. He pictured Charlie fishing out on the Rez. He thought of Charlie drinking beer at Harry's, Charlie shirtless, out at La Push.

I gasped. He cringed. Could wolves blush? Pretty sure I was.

_"__Now do you get it? I never meant for it to happen, but we don't choose it. It chooses us."_

_"__I . . . I don't know what . . . How do I...? I didn't even want . . . My Dad, Sam. I killed him. He's dead. He's not even cold yet and I'm consumed with . . ."_ I could still feel Charlie's arms around me.

_"__I know, LeeLee."_

I gazed at him. Even that didn't hurt any more.

_"__I'm glad it doesn't. I never meant for it to. I never would have hurt you on purpose."_

I knew that. It was the reason it had hurt so much, because he didn't grow to hate me. He just stopped loving me.

_"__I still love you."_

I cocked my head at him.

_"__No, it's not the same, but in a different way. I still care." _

_"__What happens now?"_

He showed me pictures of him being for Emily everything she needed. What he didn't mean to show me was her being what he needed when he'd hurt her.

_"__That's what happened tonight,"_ I blurted mentally. _"I knew, somehow, what he needed. But the reverse was also true; he was exactly what I needed, as if he knew as well."_

He shook his furry head. _"He doesn't know like we know. He just is. I think that may be why it happens: because they are what we need already without having to think about it, or become it, or whatever it is we go through. They just are."_

Charlie was what I've always needed all along? Always will need? I could feel the truth of it in my gut.

_"__But what do I do?"_

He stood and walked a few paces away. _"I don't know. The only thing I know is that this gift, or curse—whichever way you want to think about it—heightens our instincts. All I can say is, trust those. It's all we've got to go on sometimes."_

He padded noiselessly back into the trees and left me alone, finally. However, I didn't want that any more. The solitude pressed in around me. I closed my eyes and tried to feel something, anything. Instinct, maybe? I didn't know how to listen for it. All I knew was that I wanted Charlie.

I turned and started running again.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

**Charlie**

The rain pattered on the awning set up over Harry's graveside service. We stood under it and spoke words of memory and affection, some regret at letting our friend pass without having told him what he meant to us. Sue and Seth greeted people with watery eyes, but Leah worried me. She was so stoic, distant. Anyone there might have said she was cold in the face of the event around her.

Maybe it was my cops' intuition, but I read her differently. As I watched her, she shifted and her eyes met mine. She was a little china doll with painted-on features and porcelain skin. If I went to her, squeezed her, held her, she would collapse in my arms and let me hold her up. That was what she wanted, but not here, not in front of all these people.

Instead, I held her gaze. Her façade cracked a little and her head drooped. Stepping up beside her, I squeezed her hand and greeted the next person who came to offer condolences. Her fingers locked with mine and she made it through to the end.

When only a few people remained, milling around, reluctant to leave, we walked a few paces away to shelter under a tree.

"I know I'm not your father, Leah, but I'm your friend. If you need anything . . . if you want anything at all, call me. Come find me. I'm here. Okay?"

She nodded, eyes watery for the first time all day. "Thank you. I will. I promise."

~O~

**Leah**

Odd as it was to think of sprinting through the forest naked, that was essentially what I was doing, and it was so freeing. With nothing between me and the wind, this thing in my chest could stretch and breathe.

Every night I was getting closer to Charlie's house. Tonight, closest of all. Hidden barely inside the tree line, I watched the blinking light from his television softly filter from his living room through to the kitchen window. I had been here so often, I almost didn't notice the stench of that bloodsucker all over his house.

"Thank you," Edward said, coming up beside me.

Right. He could read minds. Forgot about that. _"I said 'almost', parasite."_

He hummed but was otherwise quiet.

The light from the TV clicked off. I listened for Charlie's movements: to the trashcan in the pantry to throw away his beer can, then to the coffee pot to check that it was prepared for the morning. Shut the blinds. Lock all the doors. He was a cop after all. Doesn't keep the vampire out though. I frowned as I glanced beside me.

"I'm waiting for the same thing you are," he said.

_"_I'm _not breaking and entering."_

"I've been _invited_."

I paralleled Charlie's movements as he walked through to the other side of the house. His bedroom light came on. What was his routine? Pajama's first? Brushing his teeth? Did he read at night?

"He checks on Bella."

Fucker. Forgot he was there. But I didn't know that. I looked at Edward through narrowed eyes. What else could he tell me about him?

"I can tell you it's teeth first."

I turned back to Charlie's window. It was cold tonight. Did he put enough quilts on his bed?

"He isn't thinking about being cold. At least not loud enough for me to hear him."

_"__I thought you heard everybody, except Bella."_

"I can hear Charlie, but he's more difficult than most people. He's a lot like Bella. From him I can only get an idea of what he's thinking and only if it's something he's concentrating on. Fleeting thoughts, random wonderings, they don't usually filter through."

So Edward's probably not heard him think about me then.

"Why would you say that?"

_"__Get out of my head, corpse."_

He held up his hands in surrender and stepped toward the house.

_"__Wait. Does he? I mean, why would you ask me why I think that, unless what I'm thinking is wrong? So that means he does, right?"_

Edward's silence said enough. Charlie didn't.

"Leah, . . ."

_"__Shut up. I don't need to hear it out loud, too."_ I turned away and blinked. I hadn't considered that wolves could cry before.

"He thinks about you quite a lot, actually, and pretty loudly as well. You occupy almost as much of his thoughts as Bella."

The unintended barb pierced me.

"It's irrational to be jealous of the man's daughter."

_"__In case you haven't noticed, there's not a whole lot about this situation that_ is _rational."_

He nodded his head in concession. "He worries about you, the same as Bella."

_"__Like a father."_ I didn't have one of those anymore.

"A little."

Could Charlie be that for me? My heart clenched. I needed him that way, but that wasn't all I wanted from him. The desire in my belly told me I also craved something decidedly un-fatherly. God! I was being ripped in half. What I wanted on one side, what I needed on the other.

"Charlie thinks the same thing."

Damn. I'd forgotten about the leech again.

"If I understand the imprinting process correctly, what you are feeling is the combining of your and Charlie's needs. You need a father figure. He wants to be that for you. He is lonely and needs a companion. You want to be that for him. You need, he wants. He needs, you want. It's quite symbiotic."

_"__But, how can both…?"_

He shrugged. "Why must they be mutually exclusive?"

Bella's window opened and Edward was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 **

**Charlie**

The phone rang while I was pouring my first cup of coffee. "Hello?" I asked, voice still rough. There was a beat of silence that brought me more fully awake. Bella was still upstairs asleep.

"Leah?" I don't know what made me guess it was her, but suddenly I knew it was. "Leah, are you okay?"

"Ch-Charlie, I'm . . . I'm sorry to bother you, but you said – "

"I did. It's okay. What's wrong?" I strapped on my belt, tied my shoes and looked for my keys, already headed toward her without thinking.

"My car won't start. Mom's at work and Seth caught a ride to school with his friend, but I can't go anywhere."

"I'll be right there, sweetie. Just sit tight."

"O-okay," she said a little breathlessly, then hung up.

I called the station and told them I'd be late.

"I really appreciate this," she said from her front porch as soon as I was out of my car.

"It's no problem. That's what I'm here for." My grin widened as she smiled up at me.

A few too-short hours later I shut the hood of her car. "There. All fixed."

"Thanks, Daddy." I felt her stiffen and freeze beside me.

My heart broke for her. Of course this would have been something Harry would have done with her. "It's okay, Leah. I wish he was here to do this for you, too. I'm a poor substitute, but happy to help."

Her russet skin was pink at her slip of the tongue, but she stayed silent as we walked back toward my cruiser.

"And hey, I don't mind. You can call me 'dad,' 'daddy' if you want to. More often than not, Bella calls me Charlie." I shook my head. "She's not as mature as she thinks she is," I muttered.

"I'm sorry."

Laughing lightly, I said, "Don't worry about it. It's a teenager thing. You gave Harry a run for his money more than once, I remember."

She chuckled beside me as she leaned against my car, her eyes so big and deep, so innocent and yet so tragic all at the same time. "Leah . . ."

"Yeah?" she whispered.

"I'm glad you called."

She blushed again and toed the ground with her sneaker. For all her foul mouth and brash bravado, she was also so young and sweet.

"I've got to go. See you later?"

"Sure, yeah." She nodded. A mischievous grin crept over her face. "Bye, _Daddy._"

I laughed hard and climbed into my cruiser. "Go in the house, little girl. Don't stand in the road."

She winked cheekily and climbed the steps then turned to wave at me from the porch. I waved as I pulled away, but glanced in my rearview mirror just in time to see her curvy backside as she went into her house.

_Little girl?_


	6. Chapter 6

*My sincere apologies for the lateness of this chapter. February is an extremely difficult month for me at work.*

Chapter 6

Leah

My mother sent me to Charlie's with some of my dad's fishfry as a "thank you" for fixing the car the other day. What she thought of me calling him in the first place, I didn't know, but the look she gave me told me she was thinking something. I'd have to tell her what was going on eventually.

Of course she knew all about the wolves and imprinting, what with both me and Seth having now gone through the change and her taking Dad's place on the council. But some things—while we couldn't hide them from the pack—were understood to be private among us.

It was difficult enough having them know. The guys, being guys, could appreciate the thoughts of the others if they lingered on a girl's ass or chest. The same appreciative silence wasn't afforded to me. If my thoughts strayed for even a second toward Charlie or my feelings for him, I got a head-full of groans and whines.

"Leah!"

"Come on!"

"Gross!"

"Shut that shit off!"

As if I could. Certainly not while standing on Charlie's porch, ringing his doorbell. My hands were shaking. My heart was racing. But as soon as Bella opened the door and I saw Charlie sitting there in his chair, it was like I could breathe again.

"Leah," Bella said. " Hey. How are you?"

It was a great effort but I managed to tear my eyes off Charlie long enough to scrutinize her. Did she know? Had the bloodsucker told her? Movement caught my eye from the kitchen doorway and I looked up. Edward shook his head, a silent answer to my question. I nodded, but my eyes were drawn back to Charlie.

"Good. I'm good. You?" I asked, though honestly I didn't care at the moment. The pull to Charlie was so strong, I wasn't sure I could ignore it. How weird would it be if I walked over and sat in his lap? Edward clearing his throat irritated me, but it brought me back to the fact that Bella had answered. I held up the bag in my hands. "My mom sent this over. She said to tell you 'thanks', again."

Charlie stood and came to the door. "Little Girl," he said, grinning. He was so close I could smell him: warm, rich, like earth and air, as if he was birthed from the woods itself. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply of his scent. Wonder if anyone would notice if I climbed into his bed and rolled around in that smell?

"Hey, Daddy." I smirked up at him, realizing how much taller he was than me. I loved that.

With my heightened wolf senses, I could hear Bella's frantically whispered questions to Edward about mine and Charlie's exchange. I could just imagine what she was thinking if the leech hadn't told her anything.

"Why don't you stay and have dinner with us?" Charlie asked. "Bella was just making fish, using up the last of the fishfry mix I had, as a matter of fact." He took the bag from my hands and guided me into the room and through to the kitchen. I swore I floated across the space the way his hand rested at the small of my back. The warmth of his large palm soaked through my thin sweater and tank top, and sunk into my skin. I needed fewer layers between us.

"Sit here," Edward said rather abruptly and pulled out a chair. "Bella and I will sit over there. You can sit next to Charlie."

_What the hell, vampire boy? _Not that I didn't appreciate the placement, but seriously, he needed to back the fuck up.

Under his breath, too low and too fast for the humans in the room to hear, he muttered, "The moaning is a tad obvious, don't you think?"

Oops.

He nodded. Bella was watching us. No one needed to be a mind reader to see she wanted to ask questions. Would it be better if she knew? This wasn't a passing phase for me. I wouldn't leave Charlie for as long as he lived.

"Well, tell your mother 'thank you' for me. She didn't have to send over any more. This isn't all you have left, is it?" Charlie asked.

I put a napkin in my lap. "Oh no, not at all. I can make it, easy."

"You're my new favorite person. Harry always guarded that secret like it was gold." He took a bite of his fish. I did the same. It was tasty. Bella was a good cook. "Seriously though, I'm glad you came."

"Me, too."

Silence descended on the four of us for a while. Bursting at the seams with so much, yet I had nothing I could say.

"You could tell him," Edward muttered behind his napkin.

_You could get the hell out of my head, leech. _

"You're going to have to eventually," he said, low and fast. Then normally, "Bella, this is delicious. Thank you for having me over, Charlie."

Charlie scoffed beside me. "Bella didn't give me much choice."

"Dad!" Bella said, jerking her head my direction and giving her father a glare. I wanted to slap the impertinence from her face. Edward growled a warning, protecting his mate at the threat in my thoughts. I narrowed my eyes at him, moving slightly closer and forward of Charlie. He wasn't the only one capable of protecting what was his.

_Don't like what you hear? Keep it to your fucking self. _

"It's all right, Bella. Nevertheless, Charlie, I appreciate the hospitality. As does Leah, I'm sure."

Charlie smiled at me again. Was he genuinely pleased I was here? Was this strange family dinner something he'd like to have on a regular basis?

Bella whispered something to Edward but I couldn't hear it over the word "family" echoing in my head. Family. Could I be part of Charlie's family one day? Soon? The longer I was away from him, the deeper I ached.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

**Charlie**

I liked to think I was a good cop. Most cops are. We have good intentions, good instincts, good "scum-bag radar". But we weren't perfect, especially when it came to our families and those we cared about most. Sometimes it was big things: cops who were blind to cheating wives, drug-addled sons, or sneaking-out daughters.

Then again, sometimes it was just little things, like what was going on at the table around me. What I'd thought was a nice dinner with my daughter, her boyfriend, and my...uh...and Leah, wasn't. Small talk, comfortable silence, compliments on Bella's cooking, Edward kissing my ass, and then all of a sudden, boom! There were raised voices, chairs sliding back, and girls yelling things I didn't understand.

Edward had his arms around Bella, easily holding her back, but she was sputtering incoherently at Leah. I hadn't seen that much anger on her face in a long while.

"You—you – how could you? But he's - and you're—get out! Get out of my house!"

"Whoa! Whoa! What the hell, Bella? Calm down. Sit down. What are you doing?" I had Leah by the arms to hold her back as well. Her venomous attitude was just as bad as Bella's.

"Me? How could I? How dare you get all high and mighty with me! Little hypocritical bitch!"

Edward stepped in front of Bella, the warning clear on his face, but Bella wasn't having any of it. She was slinging barbs over his shoulder for all she was worth.

Leah stepped back into me and I realized I was no longer holding her back, rather she was pushing me backward, like she was trying to protect me.

"Leah," Edward said in a low growl, "Unless you want to lay your cards on the table right now, I suggest you take a deep breath."

Leah didn't respond but I felt her shaking in my arms; she was scared to death. I pulled her against my chest, putting my arms around her front and holding her to me. "I've got you. It's all right," I whispered. I hadn't the foggiest fucking clue what was going on but I was certain Leah was safe. She had nothing to fear here with me.

"Leah, listen to me," Edward went on. "You'll hurt . . . People will get hurt. That's not what you want. Bella and I were leaving anyway. We're going. You...you – "

But neither girl stopped. They were like children arguing on a playground. "All right, that's enough! Stop it right now or I'll turn you both over my knee and give you what you're asking for!"

Leah squeaked, stiffened against me and then sagged in my arms. Bella rolled her eyes, but let Edward usher her out the front door. It was after curfew for her, but under the circumstances it was probably for the best.

When they were gone, I turned Leah around to face me. Still holding her upper arms, I examined her eyes. "Mind explaining what just happened here?"

With only the two of us in the room and the yelling now over, she went from shaking to nervously bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her hands fisted the sleeves of my shirt, eyes flitting up and down over my face. I couldn't read her expression. Terror? Surprise? Anger? The situation before and the incongruent moment now were a convoluted mess.

"You going to tell me what's going on? Why was Bella so mad? What was she and Edward talking about? Leah? I need answers. I can't help you if you don't tell me."

She shook her head violently, long, black hair falling over her unreadable face. She stared at my chin as she tried to answer me. "I c-c-can't." She struggled in my hands. I released her, but instead of moving away, she leaned into me, like she needed me.

"Oh, Little Leah. What's got you so upset?" But when I tried to comfort her, wrap her in my arms, she took off. First my front door slammed, and then her car door. Tires spun in the gravel of my driveway. She was gone, and I wanted to punch the wall.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

_**Leah**_

"Leah?"

My mother knocked on my bedroom door. I lay crying in my bed like a child, but she'd seen me this way enough in the last few months. It wasn't anything new. Only the cause was different.

She turned the knob and the bed dipped with her weight as she sat down beside me. However, I kept my face buried in the pillow.

"Oh, baby," she cooed. "Did you see Sam today?"

I shook my head, but otherwise refused to surface. At twenty-two, I should be ashamed of how I was behaving.

"What is it, honey?"

Just thinking his name was becoming painful. The pain pierced my chest, causing a sob to rise unchecked within me. "It hurts," I cried.

"Leah?" Mom's voice took on a different tone. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Leah?" Her hands flew over me, checking for injuries.

I surprised us both when I sat up quickly and grabbed for her. One of her hands held me tightly, the other petted my hair. "Missing Daddy?" she asked.

Both right and wrong, I just nodded my head against her shoulder.

What would my father think of this situation? He'd tried to help me when Sam had imprinted on Emily. He'd told me to forgive Sam, to let him go. He'd said there was someone better for me, and Sam imprinting on Emily was just proof of that. If he were here now, would he say the same thing about me imprinting on Charlie?

"Mom, I . . ." The words poured out of me as I told her my story. The agony of it all interrupted me occassionally and I stopped to lay against my mother's shoulder and cry. "I love him so much. It hurts to be so far from him. It hurts, Momma."

She shushed me and cooed until I was calm enough to listen. "Well, there's only one thing to do. You have to tell him, soon."

"No! No, Mom. I can't. I can't tell him this."

"Why can't you?"

I got up and paced away then turned to stare at her. "Because I'm a giant wolf! What man in his right mind wants to fu- love a huge, hairy beast?!"

"You have to give him that chance."

Sitting down, my head in my hands, defeated, I said, "And when he rejects me? When he turns away, disgusted, what then? I can barely breathe now as it is, I won't survive his rejection. I won't." Tears slid down my fingers, wetting both palms.

"It feels that way, I'm sure. I can only imagine what the effects of imprinting are inside you, but this must be done. You know that, don't you?"

I did. I knew, one way or another, Charlie had to be told.

"But I don't think you should do it alone."

I looked up at her, confused.

"Leah, dear, this isn't like you imprinted on someone from the tribe, or even some guy in Forks. You've imprinted on the Chief of Police and the father of a Cullen mate. The situation is more complicated than it appears on the surface."

I fell backward on my bed. _Well, shit._

~O~

The invitation was extended. We wolves surrounded the elder council as the Cullen clan stepped out of the trees on their side of the treaty line.

"Hello Chief Black," Carlisle said politely.

Billy responded, skipping the pleasantries. "Leah tells us you know what has happened."

"We do," Carlisle said.

"You understand Charles Swan must now be told."

Bella crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. I hadn't realized she knew what I looked like in wolf form. Edward must have told her. "I never wanted him involved in this world," Bella said. "I still don't."

I huffed. _Like I did._

"Nevertheless, Bella," Billy said. "The imprinting process is uncontrollable. Leah has imprinted on your father. Once he was just a good friend to me and to this tribe, but now he is a part of it. He is made one of us by this joining. What must be decided now is only the details of how he will be told."

How easily and nonchalantly they all spoke about something so personal, so life-changing to me. I stood as stoically as I could while, in reality, I was dying every moment.

_Charlie. Charlie. Charlie,_ my heart chanted. _Please, don't turn me away. I need you._


End file.
